An unnamed sketch aired on the British comedy series The Lenny Henry Show featuring Lenny Henry portraying a seventh incarnation of the Doctor. The sketch used official props from the main series.

It was included on the VHS release of The Curse of Fatal Death, the DVD release of Mindwarp, and the blu-ray release of Season 22.

In a Comic Relief 2023 sketch Lenny Henry would go onto portray a meta-fictional version of himself who was actually the 9.5th Doctor that regenerated into the Fourteenth Doctor. No official connection has been made between Henry's two incarnations.

Synopsis[]

The Doctor has just regenerated and a Cyberman incident lures closer.

Plot[]

In the TARDIS, Peri shouts for the Doctor to help. He stands up from behind the console in a new incarnation, having regenerated during the earlier turbulence in the time vortex. The TARDIS lands on a planet where the pair encounter a Cyberman bearing a striking resemblance to Margaret Thatcher who has conquered the planet. After defeating her and liberating the people, the Doctor and Peri leave for more adventures.

Cast[]

• The Doctor - Lenny Henry
• Peri Brown - Jadie Rivas^[1]
• Guitar player - TBA
• Thatchos - Steve Nallon^[1]
• Human - Lee Cornes
• Ticket inspector - TBA
• Denos - unknown

Crew[]

• Writer - Lenny Henry^[2]
• Script editor - Kim Fuller
• Film cameraman - Philip Bonham-Carter
• Film recordist - Ian Sansom
• Film editor - Colin Jones
• Properties buyer - Bob Warans
• Graphic designer - Ian Greenway
• Visual effects designer - Kevin Molloy
• Camera supervisor - Ron Green
• Technical co-ordinator - John Mersh
• Vision mixer - Heather Gilder
• Make-up designer - Vanessa Poulton
• Costume designer - Dee Robson
• Production team - Janet Evans, Sheryn Offord, Valerie Wilson
• Production manager - Ed Bye
• Videotape editor - Mykola Pawluk
• Sound - Dave Thompson, Laurie Taylor
• Lighting - Fred Wright
• Design - David Hitchcock, David Laskey
• Produced & Directed by Geoff Posner

Worldbuilding[]

• Tom and Jerry, Star Trek's USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) and Terry Wogan can be seen as the TARDIS scanner changes channels.

Notes[]

• This sketch unexpectedly predicted two aspects of the DWU Seventh Doctor's era; namely that the Sixth Doctor would regenerate on the floor of the TARDIS after extreme turbulence, later seen in Time and the Rani, and the Doctor facing a villainous Margaret Thatcher allegory, later seen in The Happiness Patrol.
• While not strictly part of Doctor Who continuity, this sketch technically makes Lenny Henry the first black actor to play the Doctor. He would later portray the 9.5th Doctor, also called Lenny Henry, in the sketch Lenny Henry Regenerates into David Tennant from 2023.
  • The first actor to do so in an official capacity, however, would be Daniel Anthony in The Sarah Jane Adventures serial Death of the Doctor in 2010 when he briefly played the Eleventh Doctor in place of Matt Smith in a "body-location-swapping-gone-wrong" sequence.
    • The first actual black incarnation of the Doctor in the TV series would be Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor, seen in the episodes Fugitive of the Judoon and The Timeless Children in 2020, Once, Upon Time in 2021 and The Power of the Doctor in 2022.
    • The first numbered Doctor portrayed by a black actor would be Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor.
• Both Peri and the Cyberman Denos use a type of ray gun distinct from the Cyber-guns used in contemporary television serials.
• Thatchos and Denos are CyberNeomorphs.

Home video releases[]

The story was released on the VHS of The Curse of Fatal Death and the DVD release of Mindwarp. In 2022, it was included in the blu-ray The Collection boxset of Season 22.

Footnotes[]